Everyone seems to agree that the loss of protective coastal wetlands eventually could lead to the loss of New Orleans. The group exhibit "Uncertain Territory: Losing Louisiana," which opens Thursday at Delgado Community College, attempts to bring the erosion crisis into artistic focus.

Land loss is felt acutely on Grand Isle, where each passing storm represents a struggle for survival. Five years ago, Grand Isle resident Sue Galliano asked Sidney Wilder, a former New Orleans Museum of Art curator, to help arrange an annual art exhibit at the Grand Isle Community Center that would present poetic images of the Louisiana wetlands and raise awareness of land loss. Each year thereafter, Wilder invited well-known, green-leaning artists (Allison Stewart, Adrian Deckbar, Jacqueline Bishop, Bradley Sabin and Raine Bedsole) to jury an exhibit of eco-art by coastal artists from Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas.

With Hurricane Katrina, the threat of inundation that Grand Isle long has faced became a much more immediate aspect of New Orleans' reality. Now, a selection of works from previous Grand Isle exhibits (by Sallie Ann Glassman, Jeremy Jernegan, Mary Jane Parker, Ed Smith, Wanda Sullivan, Melissa Turner Drumm and others) comes to Delgado.

The reason for revisiting the Grand Isle shows in New Orleans is simple, Wilder said: "It's just to make more people aware. Not so many people travel to Grand Isle to go to an exhibition."

UNCERTAIN TERRITORY: LOSING LOUISIANA

What: A group show of ecology-related art dedicated to erosion awareness.